Private Carriers Seek Relief From Hours of Service Provision
Some truck fleets are registering strong opposition to a provision of the new driver hours of service rules.
Oliver B. Patton
Washington Editor
Private carriers, including the giant Wal-Mart Stores, Bentonville, Ark., want the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to back off the requirement that a driver stop driving 14 hours after coming on duty.
The daily hours provision of the new rule is much less flexible than the current rule. Now, a driver may not drive after 15 hours logged as on duty - but off-duty time for meals or other breaks is not part of the calculation. The new rule stops driving time 14 hours from when the work day begins, no matter how the time is logged. The safety agency said this restriction is necessary because driver performance degrades significantly in the later stages of a work shift.
Wal-Mart, and a coalition of more than 20 trade groups representing service and retail industries, say this restriction creates an unreasonable economic burden - and a safety hazard.
Wal-Mart said the new rule will reduce driver productivity by about 6%. Each Wal-Mart driver will lose 48 minutes a day of productive time, which in turn translates to 296,000 fewer miles per day for the company. The company says it will need about 275 more drivers and 300 more tractors to haul the same amount of freight that it hauls now. The company described itself as the largest private carrier in the country, with 6,000 tractors, 35,000 trailers and 7,118 drivers.
On top of that, Wal-Mart said, it expects some of its current drivers to quit, since the cutback in hours will translate into a loss of income.
The upfront cost of adding drivers and tractors is at least $25 million, Wal-Mart said. And there is a safety cost as well, the company added, considering the new drivers and additional trucks that will be on the road.
Wal-Mart does not object to the cutback from 15 to 14 hours, but it wants the same flexibility in the 14-hour day that exists now in the 15-hour day. That is, time taken for meals, naps and other breaks should not be counted against the 14-hour limit, the company said.
The Hours of Service Coalition, as it calls itself, has the same basic complaint, but proposes a slightly different solution. It wants the agency to let companies choose between the new rule (11 hours of driving, 14 hours on-duty) and the old rule (10 hours of driving, 15 hours on-duty).
The coalition includes such groups as the American Bakers Assn., the Grocery Manufacturers of America, the National Propane Gas Assn. and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The National Private Truck Council will join the petition, said council president Gary Petty.
"The new hours of service regulation represents an excellent example of government getting things right," said Petty. Nevertheless, he is encouraging NPTC members to support the coalition's position.
The safety agency in its cost-benefit analysis acknowledged that the new rule levies a theoretical net cost on the trucking industry. The cost of the final rule is $1.3 billion per year and the net benefit is $1.1 billion per year, compared to full compliance with the current rules. These numbers are theoretical, since full compliance with the current rules does not exist, but they indicate that the real costs of the new rule will be higher than the costs of the current rule.
According to the safety agency's calculation, the benefit in terms of lives saved by the new rule is between 24 and 75 - again, compared to theoretical full compliance with the current rule.
Other Petitions
One industry group, the National Propane Gas Assn., wants to speed up the new rules.
It is not practical for propane distributors to wait until next January to comply, because they would have to adapt to significant operational changes in the middle of their busiest time of the year, the association said. It asked the agency to let propane carriers start using the new rules by Sept. 1.
Other interests want to be completely exempt from the rule. Utility companies told the agency that their operations are so different from freight operations that they should not be covered by the rule. The Edison Electric Institute, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Assn. and the American Gas Assn., among others, renewed a plea for exemption that they made during the rulemaking process - a plea that did not elicit a response from FMCSA.
Another business that wants relief is FOX News, which argued that the rule will hurt its ability to deliver news to the public. FOX News will be forced to cover fewer stories because, under this rule, drivers will not have as much time as they previously had to cover stories, resulting in fewer stories being covered, the petition says.
A spokesman said FMCSA will review these requests, but there is no timetable for when an answer might emerge. The new rule is scheduled to go into effect at the beginning of January 2004.
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